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With its swing state status firmly entrenched, Ohio has become a quadrennial referendum on the hopes and economic fears of a world-weary national electorate.

At the turn of the last century, Dayton and Cleveland, Ohio were two of the most dynamic centers of industry and innovation the world had ever seen. Ohio’s role in creating today’s global auto, oil and aviation industries is beyond dispute. But a century later, a large part of the state’s 11.5 million population, representing 18 electoral votes, live in a lingering Midwestern Rust Belt.

Although parts of northeastern Ohio are now in the throes of a well-publicized heavy industry reboot, the state also has high-tech dreams of digitally-rebranding itself as Rust Belt Chic. The goal is to diversify its industries so that rejuvenated auto and steel operations co-exist with the kinds of tech start-ups that made household names out of Redmond, Mountain View and Cupertino.

For perspective, Forbes.com turned to David Hammack, a historian at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and the co-author of a recently published monograph on the economic and industrial rise and fall of northeastern Ohio.

What made Ohio an inventive industrial powerhouse?

Location. From the 1870s until after World War II, northeastern Ohio was the best place inNorth Americato bring iron and coal together to produce iron and steel. It was also an excellent place from which to ship heavy iron and steel goods to market; everything from rail and sheets and tubes of iron and steel for buildings and bridges to [what] was manufactured from those materials; including lots of heavy complex goods like motors, engines, transmissions, machine tools, sewing machines, auto parts, agricultural equipment and bicycles. The cheapness of the steel made all of that possible. Northeast Ohio had a lot of advantages because it was the point where the railroads fan out to carry goods relatively cheaply to every point from Baltimore to Boston.

Is location for smokestack industry as important in the first part of the 21st century as it was in 1900?

There’s been a long term decline in the cost of shipping and moving people and goods. After World War II, the Pax Americana knocked down a lot of political barriers across the Pacific and Atlantic and into the Southern hemisphere. That eased movement on the oceans. There were also all the technological and organizational changes --- the [standardized] shipping container; the completion of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. So in some cases now, it’s cheaper to make steel in South Korea and unload it in Cleveland than to make it in Cleveland.

David Hammack Credit: Dan Milner

What caused Ohio to subsequently lose its edge and competitiveness?

Part of it was the growth of the world economy after World War II. There was an explicit effort by the U.S. Government to promote global economic integration and respond to communist challenges by developing basic industry in Asia. That’s not unrelated to the cheapness of South Korean steel.